Argh.. Just found out that the PMW-350 has overcranking upto 720-60p. Could not see that in the first material I read.

The new 350 shoulder mount camera seems awesome. It's too bad that the price is so high. I don't think news operations are going to jump at these when you can buy the Panasonic 300 for $8,000. Too bad, we really wanted a competitive price on a new Sony camera.

Price seems quite reasonable to me (relatively speaking of course).
A few years back the standard price for an HD camera (like the F900 and Varicam) was about £70k if memory serves. And after a couple of years they came down a lot to around the £40k mark.
So now to have Varicams and PDW700s for around £20k seems much more feasible for an owner-operator. And these lower-priced cameras like the 350 open up the possibilities even more. Just a shame the lenses are so damned expensive - especially considering how mediocre most of them are.
Steve

But it offers a lot more than the 300 does for the extra price. And remember that for a news operation you're likely to need more cards than for a self contained operation - shoot, hand to reporter to take away, shoot more, then get back the first cards later. Small cheap cards become far more important than large capacity ones.

And now it's more formally approved, the adaptor/Memory Stick route may get taken up by those who baulked at SDHC. Memory cost savings may go a long way towards offsetting the difference in capital costs.

And being 1/3", the lens options for the 300 are vastly more limited than for a 2/3" camera. Do any 1/3" lenses even have a doubler? And max wide angle? It's this sort of thing that may be crucial factors to many news organisations. Chips of 2/3" also increases sensitivity compared to 1/3" - should be 2 stops if all else is equal, and since these are the latest backlit, I'd expect the Sony camera to have more like a 3 stop advantage.

Then power consumption. News cameras frequently have accessories such as radio mic receivers, headlights, radio cam transmitters and that can mean a lot of power. The Sony camera is quoted as no less than about 6-8 watts more frugal! That's a big difference.

When 2/3" meant PDW700 prices the 300 did look attractive, but the price gap to this new camera is far less now.

Mike all due respect, but we are talking about a full raster, 2/3" chip HD camera here for under $20,000. It's a great price

The competitive priced sony cameras are $6,000 & $8,000 :)

Seriously, slap on a $2900 Nano Flash on the PMW-350 and you will be recording images that will be for the most part useable for just about any type of production.

Take a look at the current market offerings, I don't think you will find something that comes even close in price. The 350 has a 2/3" sensor rated at F12 sensitivity, not a 1/3". In term of cinematic abilities, it is like night and day. Also, the PMW has a much nicer color viewfinder and the many avantages of SxS cards over P2 storage. But I have to admit, the Pany 300 looks more sexy than the PMW-350...

BH Photo video offers 2/3" HPX500 at less than $10k. hows that for competitive?

Our current selling price for the: Panasonic - AG-HPX500 2/3" Shoulder Mounted P2 Camcorder is $9,899.95.

To purchase this item at this price, click below:
Panasonic | AG-HPX500 2/3" Shoulder Mounted P2 | AG-HPX500[Panasonic AG HPX500]

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As good as the HPX-500 looks on paper, its CCD is really limited to 720HD resolution and the DVCPro HD P2 file system is quite outdated. It's a slower, noiser and heavier camera but I agree, for 10K, it is not too bad of a deal. Just currious, why is Panasonic putting all its P2 cameras on sale at 50% off including their flagship Varicam models?

Thierry.

Add an HD lens to the HPX500 and you're getting close to the 350 kit price too.
Steve

I don't know if SDHC adapters will work with the new cams. I see no reason why they won't, but why now go that route when you have a tested and approved option via the new sony memory stick adapter?

The very brief test I did with an F900R on the bench and the comparison tests I did with my PDW-700 suggest the 350 is offering pictures that are on a par with these cameras. The 350 has less noise than F900R and PDW-700, similar resolution and is more sensitive.

Didn't check for IR, but Sony did state that the optical filters have improved IR cutoff.

Less!? I think Sony have finally figured out how to go less than nothing!

because memory sticks still cost more than SD. The fast one's a fair bit more.

ex1 now on Japanese website with price
 

Ex1r priced in Japan - 714,000 yen available december.


http://www.fujiya-avic.co.jp/proshop/xdcamex.html

the current model ex1 is going for 610,000 yen with 2 X 8GB and 1 X 16GB SxS cards.

translated:
Sale schedule in December
EX1 equipped with 1/2 types three CMOS in a compact body that exceed the imagination evolves further.

Standard price \714,000 including tax

SONY MEAD-MS01
MEAD-MS01
Sale schedule in January
Memory Stick adaptor
It is possible to collect to Memory Stick PRO-HG duo HX by using this adaptor.

Standard price \14,700 including tax

I was one of the people that originally discovered that it was possible to use SDHC via an adapter with the EX3 and then EX1. Initially this excited me, but I soon discovered that it simply was not as robust as using SxS, for many reasons. The new Sony adapter eliminates many of the issues as it has better handshaking to prevent recording before the previous file has been closed. (you will need a firmware update to be able to use the Sony adapter).

So while SDHC is cheaper you have to consider what value you give your material and how reliable you need your workflow to be. Sony have now presented EX users with option that is guaranteed to work and built to Sony's high standards.

Good point to consider, Steve. And if you take the lens out of the PMW-350, you get the body/vf/mic for $18.5K which is closer in price to the HPX500, but with additional native resolution.

-gb-

the Panasonic literature clearly states that it Records in DVCPRO HD 1080/60i, 50i, 30p, 25p and 24p; in 720/60p, 50p, 30p, 25p, and 24p; and in DVCPRO50, DVCPRO and DV. I guess they just had a mis-print.

I think that many people still favor the P2 system. The unit also weighs about the same as the sony @ 8.2 lbs for camera or 12 lbs with lens & IDX battery. It also shoots at 100Mbs. which I guess is sufficient for some of the nature TV channels etc.

Douglas,

With all due respect, the HPX500 only has 960x540 sensor resolution which they pixel shift in both directions to derive a pseudo 1080 output file. When placed side by side with a camera that records higher native resolution, the visual difference is obvious. This is what Thierry was referring to.

-gb-

The HPX-500 might record a DVCPRO HD 1080 file (1280x1080 @ 60i/30P 1440x1080 at 50i/25P), but the front end is using SD CCD's with pixel offsetting to get a 1280x720 image. Up-rezzing 720 to 1080 dosn't make it a 1080 camcorder in my book.

The DVCPRO codec is an old codec by todays standards and is somewhat dated. It isn't full raster in any of it's various flavors and it is not as efficient as Mpeg2. You also need to consider the fact that a 35Mbps codec needs a third of the recording media of a 100Mbps codec. 35Mbps data can be read from the storage medium 3 times faster than 100Mbps. This low bandwidth requirement also makes editing from USB drives easier.

Hi Alister,
You did said "Didn't check for IR, but Sony did state that the optical filters have improved IR cutoff.?". I was going to purchase my second EX3 but decided not to proceed unit Sony found a fix with the IR issue. Would you be in a position to find out and lets us know what Sony have done to improved the IR cutoff or is it still an issue but to a lesser degree.
Many Thanks

As far as I know there are no changes to the EX3 and I assume that must also include the filters. So for an EX3 you would want the new Tiffen T1 IR.

If Sony has indeed resolved the IR cutoff problem on the EX1R, it would be very prudent for them to offer this improvement as an upgrade for the EX1 & EX3 via a trip to service depot. The camera still has to go to a Sony service depot for firmware upgrades--the old filters on the front end optics could be swapped out for the newer ones. I would much prefer this solution rather than having to purchase/add-on an external IR cut filter.

I can't tell you how much I agree with this statement.

I will try and get hold of the camera again to do further tests, but the picture quality really, really impressed me. I think we really are approaching the limits of what you can get from a 1920x1080 camera.

I've got the screw on for the EX3 and it is no problem at all. Protects the front element of the lens too! Would surely be cheaper and easier than getting the camera altered.

Having said that, I still hope they have fixed the issue with the 350!

The PMW-350 by Alister's account and the spec sheet looks fantastic. If it hasn't been noted here yet, the 4 channel audio is full 48 kHz at 16bit. This is significant as other solutions in this price range have hobbled 4 channel audio. Being able to move up to the 2/3" ENG environment with an affordable lens within $20K is very compelling in my eyes.

For those of you using nanoFlash... has it hit the point of being completely ready in a production environment? Using a NanoFlash with the 350 pretty much has you set for most HD production submission requirements.

A guess based on release dates of the original EX1 and EX3 and marketing issues (read sell through of the EX1R) I would say the EX3 won't receive an update till spring at the earliest.

It is possible to send the old EX1 was set to service and the new IR filter? :-)

Without updated Sensors I can't get too excited. Besides I am still in love with my EX3. :)

The EX3 is NOT getting an update and there are no plans to update it any time soon according to my contacts within Sony.

The NanoFlash works very well, is solid and reliable. Mike Schell at CD won't release a product until he is sure that it works as advertised. I have used mine on several large projects and it has been brilliant. It's more than ready for prime-time.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the changes were part of a firmware upgrade such as cache record and many standard def unless those are tried to hardware changes. I'd think this would be a bit more than $100 as well if it were to happen. All speculation though.

SD would require a DV codec chip, there is only an Mpeg encoder in the EX3.

So record cache would be possible?

Interesting the inclusion of DV/Standard Def. I honestly think that's a rare need given one can shoot HD and edit in SD timeline with greater flexibility.

1440x1080 HQ could be valuable for those mixing EX with XDCAM HD though too.

Yes Craig, that will help. But I am much more interested in using the Nanoflash to record 1920X1080 for my XDCAM HD camera(F350) and then mixing that with the EX1 (as 1920X1080) in the timeline.

Now that will be progress.

Does anybody know if Sony's adapter (MEAD-MS01 adaptor for use with Sony’s Memory Stick Pro HG Duo HX Series media) will be able to record all frame rates-fast and slow?

That would seem to be the only advantage over the SDHC adapters out there. As the Mem sticks from Sony are a bit more pricey than SDHC cards.

As I said in my review the Sony adapter will not work for S&Q. But it will require a firmware update to the camera. I believe this is to ensure that any files being written are closed before the camera will go into record. This should prevent many of the issues that lead to corrupt files on the SDHC solutions, making the Sony method more reliable.

Alister, very nice review, much appreciated. I have a couple of questions for you based on your experience. As an EX1 owner, I'm pretty happy, but was wondering how the 350 does in terms of low light performance. Is there a noticeable difference due to the 2/3" chips?

The other thing I'm curious about is the dynamic range of the camera. I do a lot of shooting in high contrast environments (indoors with dark interiors and windows with Arizona sun shining through). I saw something about a backlight control, but haven't seen much about that. Is there any kind of compensation for handling these kinds of situations?

Last thing, how big are the improvements for the IR filter? Having black be black would be a good thing and save doing color correction to fix that.

Overall, this is the camera I've wanted to see Sony produce, I never understood why Sony would choose the XL2 as the model for a shoulder mount camera. Using the tried and true configuration for the 350 is pretty huge for me in the EFP work I do.

The PMW-350 is a good 1.5 to 2 stops more sensitive than the EX3. On top of that there is less noise (59db) so you will be able to use more gain before the pictures become unusable.
Contrast handling is certainly no worse than the EX1, EX3 or PDW-700. I don't think it is any better than the PDW-700 but what I would say is that when shooting aircraft against a bright sky it did a very good job and the highlights rolled off in a very pleasing manner. I used Hypergamma 4 for the shoot which provides improved highlight handling.

The PMW-350 has the same Hypergammas as the PDW-700 and F900R etc and these are very good for maximizing latitude. I didn't have time to do any in depth tests but estimate latitude at 10 to 11 stops using HG4 with white clip at 109.

I have not been able to test IR performance. Next time I get an EX1R or 350 I will look into this. Sony have a show in London on the 25/26th of November Sony - Power of Images so I'll try one then if not before.

As always Alister awesome job and thanks to you for doing that for the community. You are on the cutting edge!

Thanks Alister! Looking forward to checking this camera out down the road.

Bob, you have me confused here: the PDW-F350 has 1440x1080 chips, so I wonder how it can ever put out a 1920x1080 resolution, even to a Nanoflash? What am I missing?